


Finding Peace, the Second Time Around

by Amber_and_Ash



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Time Travel Fix-It, gratuitous angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-29 14:05:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5130380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber_and_Ash/pseuds/Amber_and_Ash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Klaus has been sent back from a future where Dahlia won and Klaus broke. This time around, he will never have a child. And perhaps he can fix a few other things now that he's back.</p><p>This is a shameless (and largely plot-less) Originals Family fix it - it will not attempt to follow canon events in any great detail, and is instead envisaged as a series of chapters in which  Klaus attempts to reconcile with his loved ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Most of this was written without having seen season six of TVD or season three of TO, so it isn’t just AU from Dahlia’s defeat, it will also not take into account any mythology revealed after that point.
> 
> Additional warning for excessive use of italics in dialogues. It’s my closest approximation to the works of dramatic oratory otherwise known as an everyday conversation amongst the Originals.

Klaus made a life mission of never allowing himself to be denied. Consequently, when Dahlia bound herself irreversibly to his child, he spent a great deal of time in denial. He was convinced he could bring her down, even as his allies and enemies were destroyed by the armies of hybrids Dahlia raised. He was convinced he could find a spell to reverse the binding, even as magic itself was corrupted by the inexhaustible reservoir of black energy Dahlia had access to. He was convinced he could re-unite his family, even as his siblings betrayed one another and themselves and finally faltered under the slow (impossible) death hexes cast upon them.

But eventually, it turned out that all his enemies were right, and he had been wrong: it was possible to break Klaus Mikaelson. All one needed to do was prove that it was his fault that everyone he loved suffered. His fault that Elijah had been shamed and dishonoured. His fault Rebekah had learnt to despise love. His fault that his daughter was enduring an eternity of pain. The last time he had seen his little girl, she was little more than a screaming shell; a battery for Dahlia’s ever growing power. He had to admit that he could not save her, because there was nothing left for him to save.

Freya was the last of his siblings to die, and she was the one who found a solution, of sorts. She managed to channel their suffering to create a spell fuelled by the power of all the massacres Dahlia and Klaus had committed in their war. A spell more powerful than even the one that had granted the Originals their immortality. A spell where the price and the prize were the same: a removal of his ability to ever have a child before he ever had Hope in the first place.

Klaus opened his eyes to see the last full moon he had experienced prior to the one he had used to break the curse. It had worked. His brother was around here, somewhere, and the rest of his family safe in their coffins. Hayley was still a sad murderous little orphan and Caroline had never even met him. The world was intact.

 


	2. Healing himself

Klaus had had perhaps too much time to plan for seeing Elijah again, because his set up was a little elaborate. He had retrieved everything he needed to complete their family, and constructed a house for them all just far enough away from Mystic Falls to be unnoticed by Elijah. Only when everything was perfect did he send a message. He had counted on Elijah’s self-confidence that he would arrive, and was relieved to be proven right. “Brother, you received my invitation. Good.”

“Niklaus. Calling this a family reunion is in poor taste, even for you.”

“Oh, but it is a reunion. Our siblings’ bodies are safe and nearby.”

“Do not indulge in your morbid jests with me, brother.”

Klaus smirked and dropped his head. “I do not. You can see them for yourself shortly.”

“If I agree to hand over the doppelgänger.”

He had forgotten how much that curse had once meant to him until he heard Elijah’s conviction. The first time around, he had believed it would leave him safe and happy forever, so that it was worth the sacrifice of his relationship with his siblings. He had valued it so highly so that he didn’t have to justify being tyrannical and selfish and scared. He had insisted he wanted it for more reason than just because he had been denied it, so that no-one would know how much power Mikael had kept over him.

But he’d done worse things to his siblings in their second millennia than he had ever done in his first, and could acknowledge the fool’s gold without rewriting his self-image. He could not even bring himself to resent his siblings’ anger. They were alive to be angry, and that is what mattered. “Not at all. Firstly, I already know exactly where Elena Gilbert is and I know she isn’t going to run. Secondly, I no longer have any use for a doppelgänger. There are other factors which mean that lifting the curse will not be sufficient to create hybrids, so there is no longer much point.”

“What other factors?”

“Another spell, but nothing for you to worry about.”

“I very much doubt that.”

Klaus shrugged, stepping back to allow Elijah more room to enter the house. “I cannot discuss the details of the spell. I must say I am surprised at your interest at this precise moment. I would have thought your priorities would be in quite another direction.”

Elijah’s face hardened. “Indeed. Where exactly is the rest of the family? Waiting in the dining room to yell surprise, perhaps?”

Klaus laughed and leaned against the basement door. “Your word that you will not interrupt me or attack me until I have finished speaking. I’m going to make you the new guardian of our family’s greatest secrets, and I’d rather not have to do it piecemeal. Or in pieces.”

“What nonsense is this, brother?”

“You have long complained that I have kept my plans and my knowledge too close to my chest. Here I am offering to bare everything… alright, most things... alright, some things to you. Do you really you wish to turn that down so you can catch up on your quotient of cutting brotherly quips?”

“Speak your piece, then. You have my word.”

“Come this way.”

Klaus opened the door and led him down the stairs. Elijah’s breath caught sharply when he saw the coffins, six closed and two open and empty, but he honoured his oath and said nothing.

“I’m afraid it isn’t _quite_ a full reunion. Henrik has moved on. He was too innocent to be trapped here with the likes of us.”

Klaus walked down the row, tapping them as he passed. “Rebekah, Kol, and Finn. They’re daggered, and you can wake them in the usual way.”

He stopped at the glass coffin and stared down at the sleeping face. “Our oldest sister Freya. She isn’t a vampire; she’s a witch under a sleeping beauty spell: one year awake, followed by a century asleep. Mother traded her to her sister Dahlia in exchange for having the rest of us. She should wake within the next few years. I suggest waiting for her before making any... _permanent_ family decisions.”

He moved on to stand between the last two. “This is Mother. The spell to release her coffin will bring her back to life. Two generations of the Bennett witches will do it, if you wish to do so soon. When she returns, it will be to redeem what she and the other witches regard as her greatest sin -- the creation of the vampire species in the first place. She will try to eradicate us all. For our own good, of course.”

Klaus put his hand on the last coffin. This had been the hardest for him not to simply kill out of hand. If he’d been able to track down Dahlia, he _would_ have killed her, no matter the consequences to Freya. But unlike Dahlia, Mikael had shown himself to be family in the end. He had been willing to set aside centuries old grudges to stand together against a common enemy. It was therefore no longer Klaus’s place to make decisions of life and death for him any more than for Finn and Mother. “Father. Blood will be sufficient to wake him; he is only desiccated. I imagine he will be content with killing me alone, especially if Freya is around to plead your case.”

Klaus left the coffins to walk to a small side table, and unwrapped the cloth holder. “There are now six daggers in all, three in place, the two remaining silver ones, and one gold.” Vampire memory was a great aide in writing down the necessary spells, and eradicating the knowledge of how they were made afterwards wasn’t any more complicated.

Klaus held up the sole remainders of the tragic Wickery Bridge Fire. “Thirty-six vials of ash. Six white oak stakes which can kill us. When one of us dies, I understand that we will take all vampires sired of our bloodline with us, so be very sure before you use one.”

Klaus turned to face Elijah for the first time since entering the basement. Klaus was impressed that Elijah showed no sign of tension, despite how close Klaus was standing to things he claimed to be deadly weapons.

“And finally, two lies dating back to our mortal lives that you should be aware of, lest they cloud your judgement. Mikael didn’t kill our mother, and our mother didn’t kill Tatia.”

Klaus picked up the gold dagger from the table. “Give whomever you decide to wake my love.”

Before Elijah could read his intentions and react, Klaus drove the dagger into his own heart.

 

* * *

 

As a hybrid, Klaus never entirely lost awareness, not even while daggered. Klaus could tell that it hadn’t been long when he woke up. Not more than a few days, he thought. He was in the box he had prepared for himself, weighed down by enchanted chains, so his wakening was likely to be temporary.

“Why?” asked Elijah.

“You’re going to have to be a mite more specific than that, brother.” He wasn’t even being disingenuous. It was hard to recall, after the veil of years, what his brother would be most concerned about.

“I hardly know where to start. How long have you been hoarding the bodies of our family? What did you intend to do with all of them? And why was I the only one you left alive?”

“Mostly, I’ve had the bodies since I killed them. Freya was the last I managed to track down, only a week or so ago. Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I'd hoped for our family back. I thought if I could just get everything and everyone in place, it would work. Father and Finn would learn to accept and love us, Mother would forgive me, and Freya would forgive Mother. It was a fool’s dream that you’re the only one in our family still likely to believe in. So I made it your problem.”

Elijah sighed and moved away, leaving Klaus to stare at a ceiling. He resisted the temptation to test the strength of the chains. He had theoretically given Elijah permission to send him to his final death, even if Klaus knew Elijah would never have done it. Objecting to some discomfort, no matter how evocative of greater torments, seemed petty in comparison.

“I had the spell you mentioned investigated. They tell me that you can’t sire _anything_ anymore, vampire or hybrid.”

“Yes.” Or father natural children, but Elijah wouldn’t have realised the importance of that.

“And every expert I can find tells me that it is a spell, and not a curse. You willingly allowed this.”

“Yes.”

“To break the curse and create more hybrids has been your goal for the past thousand years. What could you have possibly gained that you would consider it worth not being the only hybrid in the world?”

A world in which Dahlia was not the sole sane being Klaus knew at all. And for a very loose definition of ‘sane’, at that.

“I cannot discuss the details of the spell.” Klaus carefully chose his words, testing the constraints, “But it was the best way of ensuring my future happiness.”

“I cannot accept that. Your greatest fear has always been that you would be left alone and now you have cut off your ability to ever turn anyone again? It is impossible to believe you would risk that, no matter how great a threat you were facing.”

“I cannot discuss the details of the spell. But let us be honest, Elijah, I end up alone no matter what -- my own nature sees to that.”

Dahlia had tortured him with enough truth-visions to overcome even _Klaus’s_ belief in being the wronged party. He had spent shivering decades where every time he closed his eyes, he quite literally saw things from other people’s points of view. Then Dahlia had gone one step further, and shown him what his future would have looked like if he’d won: Hope hating him. Hating him for the constant bloodshed when he killed those who threatened her. Hating him for daggering or compelling those she loved to protect her or them from themselves. When she was an adult, hating him for forbidding her from having a life that did not have him in it. Eventually, hating him for creating her in his own image.

Hope stood over his helpless body, armed with an improved version of Papa Tunde’s blade. Her face was twisted with dark satisfaction as she swiped her hair back with a bloody hand, a gross parody of her youthful innocence. She could dagger him -- he had long since given her the knowledge of how -- but she preferred to leave him fully conscious and in pain. She liked to remove the blade every so often to remind him of his sins before plunging him back into hell. Elijah was holding Klaus down for her, but Elijah’s expression was odd, almost concerned... oh. Hope was not really there. Hope would never be there. It was just Elijah, and the chains, and Klaus’s hair uncomfortably damp with tears.

“I am back to myself, brother. You can let me go now.”

Klaus had to raise his voice over the discordant jangles of chains as his body shuddered against them, so he wasn’t entirely surprised by Elijah’s raised eyebrow. Still, Elijah accepted his word and very slowly removed his weight from Klaus’s shoulders.

“Hallucination or flashback?”

“A flashback of an hallucination, ironically. You need not look so worried, brother. I will get past them. We always do.”

“I haven’t seen you this badly off since the hunter’s curse. What happened?”

“Nothing. Quite literally,” said Klaus, with a laugh. Klaus could hear the hysterical edge and fought to regain his equilibrium.“It never actually happened, and never will.”

The spell contained safeguards to prevent him from ever suggesting that time travel was possible, but it seemed that he was permitted to share at least that much.

Elijah seemed to follow the same logic. “Because of the spell you had cast.”

“I cannot discuss the details of the spell,” replied Klaus automatically.

“I see. Well, I suppose I have answers enough for now.”

Elijah leaned over again, and Klaus closed his eyes. It was the action of a coward, but watching the dagger being inserted again was too uncomfortably close to his imagination. It took until he tasted blood on his lips for him to realise that Elijah hadn’t re-daggered him - he’d broken the chains to let him free.

Fed, showered and changed, Klaus came down to find the table set for dinner with only two place settings - Klaus’s normal position at the head, and Elijah’s to his left. Klaus paused. Elijah hadn’t decided it was necessary to move, so they were in a house that was technically owned by Klaus. Even if it hadn’t been, they had spent most of the last ten centuries living in houses Klaus owned, in towns Klaus laid claim to. It would have been habitual and reasonable for Elijah to have compelled the human servants to use this layout. It almost certainly wasn’t a test of any description. Klaus sighed to himself, and moved to the long side of the table.

Elijah entered shortly after, no doubt drawn by the sounds of Klaus’s presence. His steps faltered for no more than a second before he took the head without comment. Not a test, but not something he would refuse, either.

Klaus sat down after him and waved at the empty seats. It surprised Klaus that the family hadn’t already re-enacted the ‘reasons you suck’ speech from the previous timeline. He supposed with him safely daggered, it might not have seemed as urgent. “Have the rest left already, then?”

“I haven’t woken anyone else yet. The only steps I have taken were to investigate the spell on you, and to stake Father. You were right, it did take out his sire-line.”

Klaus was surprised that he could suddenly breathe more easily. He had never thought Elijah would allow his Father to run free, but his (re-)death eased fears in Klaus he had thought long since conquered.

“I wasn’t aware that he even had one,” said Klaus.

Elijah shrugged. “It was an easy enough test to set up.”

“I see. Well, congratulates. And thank you. But Freya won’t like it. I believe she still loved him.”

“If that is our sister Freya in that coffin, and if she does have any opinion on family matters, then she should have introduced herself before this.”

Klaus shrugged. Freya might have come up with the spell to save them all, but that did not oblige him to defend her. They ate breakfast quickly and in silence. Elijah signalled the servers to clear without standing up, and Klaus waited with him.

Elijah pushed his glass to one side. “Niklaus, I am conscious that I have done you a great wrong. I gave up on you and conspired against you. Worse still, I turned away from you at precisely the moment you most deserved my loyalty.”

Klaus rolled his eyes at Elijah’s entirely inappropriate guilt. “Nonsense. My actions were entirely selfish. Your capacity for self-delusion regarding my possible redemption is truly infinite, brother.”

Elijah out his hand around Klaus’s neck, and pulled them together until their foreheads were touching. Too late, Klaus realised his mistake. His words had been a true joke uttered and heard many times between them... after they had retaken New Orleans. In this time-line and without that context, his words must have sounded more like Klaus had been _seeking_ redemption. There was no easy way to recall the sentiment without making things worse.

And it was so very tempting to pretend it was true.

Klaus allowed himself to relax into an embrace he had once considered lost forever, and spoke instead another truth that would be misinterpreted in the context. “Brother. You are not to blame for believing the worst of me. I set out very deliberately to ensure that you would.”

“So that I would not prevent you from this mysterious spell of yours.”

No, because Klaus had been a vindictive child who had sought to hurt Elijah in the most painful way he knew how.

“I cannot--” Elijah finished the rest of the sentence in unison with him, “discuss the details of the spell.”

Klaus had not even been intending to subvert the boundaries of what he could say. Klaus supposed that Elijah coming to the conclusion that Klaus had nobly sacrificed himself to invoke some sort of tracking or protective magic for the family prevented Elijah from accidentally straying too close to the truth. In all the hundreds of years they had spent as allies and enemies, Klaus had never before feigned contrition to manipulate Elijah’s emotions; perhaps the only sin he had never committed. He supposed it was appropriate to have a full set now and know himself to be irredeemable.

Klaus was left with no choice but to change the topic again. “If you’ve staked Mikael, you should un-dagger Rebekah. She’ll be very upset if she misses the victory feast. In fact, I suspect she’ll have words if you failed to take footage of the deed for her.”

“Once she’s adapted to living in this time and knows such things are possible, I’m sure she will. And since you’re the one who prevented her from knowing, I thought it appropriate that you do the honours.”

Recognising the command for what it was, Klaus rose and made his way to the basement. Elijah had worded it like  a punishment, but Klaus knew he had kinder motives. Rebekah would stay angry at Klaus for far longer if someone else rescued her than if he relented himself. Klaus carried Rebekah’s body to the bedroom he had prepared for her, and pulled out the dagger. Solemnly, he handed it to Elijah. Equally solemnly, Elijah sheathed it and placed it in an inner pocket. With the ease of long practice, they redressed her in clean clothes, and sat down on either side of the bed to wait. Elijah had brought a book. Klaus, remembering with a sudden stab of nostalgia her comment about vampire book club, simply watched the colour slowly return to her skin.

She sat upright with a gasp, and Klaus handed her a glass of blood. “Mikael is dead.”

“Say that again?”

“Mikael is really dead, love. Elijah put a white oak stake through his heart, and he’s now just ashes in a jar.”

She looked at Elijah.

“It’s true. Klaus brought me his desiccated corpse, like a cat with a dead bird. I thought it best to let it burn, and not tempt Klaus to hide body parts under the carpet.”

Rebekah’s face was pure joy as she threw her arms around first Elijah then Klaus. She would remember her anger at him, but in this moment, it was everything Klaus had ever hoped for regarding Mikael’s death.

“How long have I been daggered?”

And the moment was over. “Ninety years.”

“Ninety years?” Rebekah’s voice rose into a shriek. “ _Ninety years_?”

“Mikael’s dead now, love. I won’t ever have to dagger you again.”

“You never had to dagger me before, you selfish, paranoid--”

“I’ll leave the two of you to catch up, then,” said Elijah, escaping through the door.

Klaus ducked the first two objects she threw, and then let the next impale him.

She glared at him. “You are not getting blood all over my room. Go away and get presentable. You have a wardrobe you need to buy for me.”

Klaus glanced at the walk-in cupboard which was already stocked with any clothing Rebekah might need, and stood up. “Of course, love.”

“And you will be following my instructions precisely when I prepare our victory party.”

“I wouldn’t dare do otherwise,” said Klaus from the passageway. He went across to his room and changed out of bloody clothes for the second time that day. Once he had finished, he just sat on his bed a second. Rebekah and Elijah were alive, sane, living in his house and willing to talk to him. It wouldn’t last, of course, but whatever time he managed was worth everything.


	3. Healing Rebekah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Klaus’s opinions about himself or others are not necessarily reasonable. His priorities might have changed, but he’s still viewing reality through a very broken lens.

Klaus should have predicted that Rebekah wouldn’t even last a full day before heading out to reunite with her lost 'true love'. He’d just had more important things to worry about than remembering she hadn’t yet acknowledged that he’d been right all along about Stefan. So, while he only had himself to blame when she dragged Stefan Salvatore through the front door by the scruff of his neck, he wasn’t going to admit it.

“He doesn’t remember me! Make him remember me, Nik!”

The whining was disturbing because it was unfamiliar. The Rebekah after the hybrids, after the white oak stake, after _Hope_ , wouldn’t have lowered herself to it. After a thousand years of frozen existence, Rebekah had left his side and had grown up. Betrayal had changed her; fear had changed her; responsibility had changed her. Klaus had to accept, all over again, that his protection had done her a disservice.

Stefan was a disturbing sight all by himself, of course. Klaus didn’t make many friends, as was frequently pointed out to him, so Stefan would never cease to raise emotions in Klaus. When Dahlia had resurrected the entire line of female doppelgangers and bound them to her service, Stefan had taken it even harder than most of the men who had loved them. The Stefan who had walked out of that fight was not the shining light that had been his one-time friend. His selfishness had become petty rather than honest; his manipulativeness indiscriminate rather than purposeful; his passion destructive rather than inspiring. Klaus looked at Stefan now, and knew the slide had already started.

He turned his attention back to is book. “I assume by the way that you’re manhandling him that he’s on vervain, love. I can’t do anything to him.”

Stefan said, “Does anyone care to let ‘him’ know what you’re all on about?”

“Nik, _do_ something.”

Klaus closed his book with a sigh. He stood, took Stefan from Rebekah’s grasp and helped him find his balance. “How are your memories of the twenties, mate? A little blurred? A few tiny little holes?”

Stefan grimaced. “It wasn’t really a good decade for me.”

“I disagree. It was an excellent decade for you. I just compelled you to forget about us; you, Rebekah and me. If you want those memories back, come visit me again when you’re free of vervain. You have my word that remembering will be the only thing I compel you to do at that time. For now, feel free to stop cluttering up my house and return to whatever insignificant activity my sister dragged you away from.”

“Nik!”

“He’ll hardly be inclined to happy reunions if you make him spend the next three days chained to a wall, sister. Do use some common sense.”

Stefan had taken him at his word, so Klaus raised his voice to stop him at the door. “Oh, Stefan? You might want to bring some vervain with you if you come. Because we will be having a conversation after it, and I don’t want you accusing me of breaking my word.”

Rebekah glared him during mealtimes for the rest of the week, but Klaus knew Stefan would eventually fall victim to his own curiosity. He was right, waiting was only a matter of days, and undoing the compulsion was the work of seconds. Klaus poured them both a glass of bourbon while he waited for Stefan to recover.

“I remember. You were my friend.”

“And you were desperately in love with my little sister. I understand you’ve moved on, ninety years being a long time for such a young vampire and all, but you’re going to need to explain that to Rebekah. It’s only been a week for her, you see. She’s still very much committed to you.”

“Was that the conversation you wanted to have with me? Because I haven’t taken it yet.”

“No it wasn’t.”

Stefan poured a vial into his drink, a waste of a good alcohol, before downing it. Klaus waited out Stefan’s shudders of pain.

“This is the conversation. At some point it is going to occur to you that you can use Rebekah’s affection for you to get something you want. Don’t.”

“Because you’ll compel me again? Or maybe this time you’ll go with a different classic, and kill me and everyone I’ve ever met?”

“Tempting, but I’ll leave any revenge to Rebekah. This is just advice to someone I still consider a friend. I find this ... what was that term, bunny diet? I find it absurd and pathetic, but I will grant you your right to find self-fulfilment in any way you please.”

Klaus was well aware that anyone who knew him would be slack jawed in disbelief at that concession. By his expression, Stefan didn’t realise the magnitude of Klaus’s tolerance, so Klaus continued without justifying himself. “I do not grant you the right to be a hypocrite. Every time you encourage someone to express their better side and then stab them in the back for it, you are making a mockery of the redemption you claim you’re trying to achieve. You’re turning them into worse people. People who think that their better nature is a weakness that should be eradicated. People like me. ”

“And we don’t want that.”

“Not if you’re trying to stay on the side of puppies and rainbows. You’re outgrowing your humanity switch now, Stefan. Be aware of what kind of vampire you’re training yourself to be. Or… give up the pretence of being human, and join me again.” Klaus smirked. “I have cookies.”

Stefan rolled his eyes, so Klaus assumed he recognised the reference.

“But whether you decide to acknowledge your darkness or not, think very long and hard before risking acquiring a reputation as dishonest. One of the main reasons that I still have my liberty is because people know that I will keep my side of a deal. People will tell me things, because they know I will reward them rather than kill the messenger. People will trade with me, because they know I will give them fair value rather than take it from their corpses. People will make peace with me, because they know I will end hostilities for good rather than use the time to prepare another attack. If your word cannot be trusted, then you force enemies to kill you just to guarantee their own safety. And unlike me, you can be killed.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for the concern. Can I leave now, or do you have any other life lessons to share?”

Klaus’s hands twitched. Stefan’s reconciliation with his brother had certainly not improved his manners. Klaus gathered all his many centuries of dignitas around him, and watched Stefan remember Klaus was someone to be feared.“No, that will be all.”

 

* * *

 

He had been unduly optimistic in assuming that Rebekah would redirect her anger in a more appropriate direction once he had been proven right about Stefan returning to regain his memories. She was screaming at him across the dinner table as Elijah ignored them both.

Klaus interrupted.  “You can’t blame me for that, love, I haven’t even _met_ the latest Petrova doppelganger.”

“If you hadn’t daggered me, Stefan--”

“If I hadn’t daggered you, Stefan would still have left you. It was only a matter of time until he decided to hop back on the wagon, and that would have been the end of it. He hates himself too much to bear someone reminding him of who he really is. You would have been left alone and defenceless against Mikael. Instead, we are alive and Mikael is dead. We’re finally free.”

“I am not free. The last thing I am is free. I’m still stuck here, watching as you kill or drive away everyone I have ever loved.”

Klaus hoped that without Haley’s pregnancy, they could stay clear of the New Orleans business entirely. Some details, however, he could not leave unresolved between them, and this seemed a good opportunity to bring it up. If nothing else, it would distract Rebekah from the thrice-damned Stefan Salvatore.

Klaus crossed his arms and smirked. “Don’t be so melodramatic, sister. I can think of at least two alternatives you have to living with us.”

“Oh, do tell.”

“First, you could re-join Marcel New Orleans. He’s still in charge there, you know, living in our family home, playing king in the town we built. You could be his queen. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Elijah stopped pretending to read his paper.

Rebekah’s face was even more open. “Marcel’s alive? Why didn’t you ever say anything? Why didn’t you go back for him?”

“Considering that he conspired with Mikael to kill me, I would have thought you would approve of me keeping away and allowing him to live out his treacherous little life in peace.”

Elijah frowned at Klaus. “I’m quite certain that Marcel did no such thing.”

Klaus continued to stare at Rebekah until Elijah followed his gaze.

“Rebekah? Do you know anything about this?”

She didn’t answer, which was answer enough to Elijah.

Elijah straightened his cuffs and smiled coldly. “It appears a small field trip to New Orleans is in order. Would you like me to bring you back the remains, Niklaus? I know how you like to collect those type of things.”

“No,” said Rebekah, grabbing Elijah’s arm. “You can’t, Elijah.”

“Rebekah. I know you cared for him. We all did. But if he went so far as to--”

“It wasn’t Marcel. It was all my idea. I was the one who called Father.”

They both immediately looked at Klaus in fear, Elijah rising to put himself between Klaus and Rebekah. Klaus held up his hands in surrender. “Do not concern yourself, brother. I have no intention of hurting a single hair on our sister’s pretty little head. Don’t you think that if I had wanted to, I would have done so while I still had the means? She is, I admit, extraordinarily fortunate that I have had a great deal of time to work through my anger, but there you have it. She is safe from me.”

Elijah shook his head in confusion, but took him at his word and turned back to Rebekah. “You brought Father down on us. You allowed our home to be destroyed, for all our happiness to be ripped away. Why? What could you possibly have hoped to achieve?”

Rebekah was making a fair attempt at hyperventilation. “I don’t-- I…”

“She hoped to punish me for forever standing in her way. With me out of the picture, Marcel and her could have had their romance in peace.”

“Is this true, Rebekah? Were you really so eager to sacrifice our own brother, to turn your back on your own blood? Klaus was trying to be tolerant of your relationship, honestly trying, and that was how you betrayed him? Betrayed _us_?”

Klaus was as shocked as Rebekah looked at Elijah’s harshness. The last time they had had this conversation, Elijah had insisted that Rebekah had been forced into her actions by Klaus’s cruelty, and hadn’t been at fault in any way. The context was obviously different, with Elijah not having to talk Klaus out of killing Rebekah, but Klaus still had not anticipated this kind of attack. Klaus could only assume Elijah’s anger was mostly a result of his own guilt. Rebekah did not deserve that from her favourite brother.

Klaus pushed away from the table and came to place a hand on Elijah’s shoulder. “Oh, don’t be such a hypocrite, brother. Plotting to kill me is practically a family tradition.”

Elijah turned and propelled him into a wall. Klaus was startled enough to let him.

“Do _not_ include me in your paranoid fantasies, Niklaus. I thought we were past this. Even when I thought I was avenging our entire family, I intended a fair and honourable fight.”

“Well, I really wouldn’t recommend that approach. It strikes me as a particularly ineffectual method of—“

He was cut off by another sharp shake. “Do not joke about this. I would never plot behind your back. We have known each other a thousand years, brother. You gave your life to me and I returned it to you. What more does it take to make you trust me?”

The problem was that Klaus trusted Elijah more than Elijah trusted himself. Dahlia would come after them eventually, firstborn or no firstborn, because linking her life to Klaus’s was the next obvious solution. Klaus laid his hand gently behind Elijah’s neck. “Never is an awfully long time. If it keeps everyone else alive, you will kill me, and you will use every trick at your disposal. Because when that time comes I might not have the grace to spare you that task.”

Elijah let him drop to the floor, staring at Klaus like he’d never seen him before. Then left the room at vampire speed, very carefully not slamming the door.

Klaus pushed himself up until he was sitting against the wall. “How did any of this end up my fault?”

“You have a gift for it, Nik.” Rebekah slid down the wall to sit down next to him.

They sat in silence for long moment before Rebekah said, “I’m not sorry.”

Klaus put an arm around her shoulder and kissed her temple. “Of course you’re not, love.”

“I tried to take it back, you know. I lost my temper and asked a witch for a favour, but as soon as I had time to think, I tried to get her to undo it.”

Klaus thought back to that night as New Orleans burned, and remembered Rebekah insisting it was her fault. He also remembered that she hadn’t said anything to warn them, either, but it was hard to blame her for being terrified of his reaction. He said softly, “Some things can’t be undone, but we can move beyond them. You’ve moved beyond so many of my sins; is it so impossible to believe I could move beyond yours?”

Rebekah allowed her tears to fall, and Klaus held her until she stopped. “Do you think Elijah will forgive me?”

“I think Elijah would forgive anything you could ever possibly do. He will certainly forgive this. Especially with my shining example of tolerance making him look bad.”

She snorted. “Thanks. Just...”

“Just what, love?”

“If you could bring yourself to forgive me at all, why couldn’t you let me stay with Marcel? He wasn’t Stefan. Staying with him would not have endangered me.”

Even aside from the restrictions of the spell, Klaus knew he was walking the mine-field laid down by a thousand years of rescuing Rebekah from her incautious love affairs. “Not physically, perhaps. But the most important thing for Marcel is being in charge and being in control. He needs the love and admiration of ‘his men’. He has never, and will never, put you first. If you’re going to spend your life with a selfish insecure tyrant, you might has well stay with me.”

That won a very small laugh out of Rebekah, but she was still uncharacteristically subdued. Klaus didn’t like that. He sighed. It was not too great a sacrifice, and for all his faults, he did love Marcel as well. “If you truly believe he loves you--”

“He doesn’t,” interrupted Rebekah.

“I must admit, I didn’t expect to talk sense into you so quickly.”

Rebekah punched him in the ribs with her free hand. “Like I’d ever believe your opinion on the matter. I know because we aren’t together already. I might not have known _he_ was alive, but I spent most of those years in a box. Marcel lived through those years of mobile phones, internet, anonymous contacts and cheap transport. You’re the most famous vampire in existence. He knew _you_ were still alive, but he never came after me. You could have been spending the last hundred years torturing me, and he just left me to it.”

“To be fair to him, love, it would have been a little difficult to explain his miraculous survival without becoming another participant in that hundred years of torture.”

“That wouldn’t have stopped you. You would have come for me no matter who had me, even if it was Father himself.”

Klaus winced. He’d forgotten that this Rebekah still had some faith in him. All her hate was concentrated on how unwilling he was to let her walk away, not on his willingness to sacrifice her. Klaus had never abandoned this Rebekah because he could make hybrids. While Klaus liked to believe he would never have left Rebekah in any genuine danger, he was aware of his own capriciousness. But he couldn’t explain that, so he just turned and kissed her temple again. “I would hardly let Mikael win, now would I?”

“ _We_ would never let Father win. And we didn’t. I wish I’d been there.”

Klaus smiled. Elijah might reminisce about Rebekah’s gentle innocence, but he remembered her as being the most vicious of them all, even when they were human.

Rebekah sighed, and resettled back against his chest. “You said you could think of two options. Dare I ask if the other option is equally as earth-shattering?”

“In a different way, but yes. _All_ the Mikaelsons can transfer into other bodies, little sister. All you need is the aid of a powerful enough witch, and you can make a body yours permanently. You can live out a life as a mortal. Marry. Have children.” Who would never be Mikaelsons enough to trigger the curse; Klaus had made sure of that. “Then come back to your original body with us when you die.”

Rebekah’s breath caught audibly. “And I’m just supposed to believe you would allow me to do that.”

“I want you close so that I can keep you safe, especially from your own foolish, fragile heart. But if you need your freedom, Elijah will back you. I know you believe Elijah supports me more than you, but that is just because he thinks I am more broken. If you convince him that this is something that can fix you, then he will move heaven and earth to give it to you. Even if he has to dagger me to ensure it.”

“Do you know how odd it is, that the dagger threats can now go both ways?”

“Oh, believe me, I am very conscious of that. Usually I’m somewhat of a fan of karmic irony, but I find I prefer it when it’s not aimed at me. Is becoming human something you would really want to do?”

“Yes.”

There was no hesitation in Rebekah’s voice. Klaus closed his eyes and forced his body to remain still.

Rebekah continued, “But not yet. We’ve only just gotten back together as a family, and I haven’t even met Freya yet. I have plenty of time to do it when I get bored.”

Knowing that no-one could see him, Klaus smiled. He was sure he could keep things interesting for a very long time.


	4. Healing Kol

Elijah came to stand behind Klaus as he painted. Klaus carried on, but when Elijah continued to keep his silence, Klaus eventually put down his brush and faced him. “You have something you wished to say?”

Elijah smiled in that amused way that always made Klaus want to glare at him even more. “No need to be defensive brother, I am not here to complain. Quite the opposite. I have been very impressed. The spell you cannot speak of aside, you appear to be making an earnest effort to make amends for your centuries of wrong-doing. You gave me charge of the family, even the parts of it I did not know existed, and have left control of them in my hands. You have offered Rebekah not only freedom, but the opportunity to achieve her dreams.”

Klaus started cleaning his brushes with sharp motions. “Do you have some sort of point you are aiming for, brother?”

“I was just curious what you had in mind for Kol.”

Klaus paused a betraying moment, before methodically resuming his task. At least Elijah had the common sense not to suggest Klaus would want to make amends with Finn. Klaus made no apologies for hating Finn because Finn hated them, but Kol had always been family even as he ran wild and avoided them. Klaus had used the fact that Kol had been working against him during Kol’s first death to avoid the worst of the grief and guilt, but it had snuck up on Klaus anyway. Kol’s second and third deaths had been even more painful. Klaus wanted Kol back. Just not enough to encourage Elijah to undagger him yet, because Kol’s presence would destabilise their family even quicker than Klaus would manage by himself. Klaus acknowledged to himself his own cowardice.

In a calm voice that wasn’t fooling either of them, Klaus said, “It rather depends on what you have in mind for Kol. There isn’t really much that Kol wants from me.”

“You don’t think that Kol will be upset with you when we undagger him?”

Klaus laughed. “Of course Kol is going to be furious with me. There just isn’t much I can do about it. You and Rebekah still believe that I love you, as much as I am capable of love. You were both already looking for an excuse to love me back. Kol doesn’t.”

Elijah said, “I would have said Kol is closer to you than he is to me or Rebekah.”

Klaus waved dismissively at him. “That’s _because_ he loves me the least. He expects no better from me, and I expected no better from him. I have treated him as a playmate or a minion as it suited me for centuries, without the impossible burden of loyalty I demanded from you or Rebekah. In his mind, there was the three of us, and then there was him. Apart, and lesser. Not as much part of ‘always and forever’ as the three of us, and that was my fault. To make any significant amends with him, I could not simply change some aspect of myself. I would have to let him take my place.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

Klaus was pretty sure Elijah followed very well, but admitting that would have meant admitting Elijah had also been at fault somewhere. Klaus put his brushes away and poured a glass of bourbon for them both while he figured out what to say. “Do you remember that diamond Kol kept trying to steal back in New Orleans?”

“Vividly.”

“It was the last component Kol needed for a spell that would create a specific gold dagger.”

Elijah looked appalled, and that was proof enough that he was by no means slow on the uptake. “You cannot mean to give such a weapon to Kol and then allow him free rein to commit havoc. He would hand it over to our worst enemy the next time he got bored.”

“You forget that I chose to give all the daggers to you, brother. It is no longer mine to do anything with.”

“But _that_ is what you believe will help resolve things between you?”

“I think that is what is most likely to allow him some satisfaction. You see, I understand why he really wanted it. I grant you, it was partly as a threat and partly as his usual brand of chaos. But most of it was what he has been trying to do all along.”

“And that is?”

“Gain your and Rebekah’s attention.”

“I am to imagine he really thought that slaughtering people indiscriminately was the way to do it?”

“Why not? It seemed to have worked for me.”

Elijah opened his mouth, then closed it with a slight head shake.

Klaus felt almost guilty as he twisted the knife. “Before, when you could not deal with both of us loose, you had no choice but to let Kol be daggered and supervise me. Now that you have the option to do things the other way around, Kol needs to know that you _will_.”

Elijah hmmed, neither agreeing or disagreeing, but in this case, no protest meant that he could think of nothing to contradict. Klaus had mercy and turned to lighter topics of conversation, leaving Elijah to reconsider their family dynamics in peace.

 

* * *

 

Klaus might have planted the idea, but he hadn’t actually expected it to bear fruit. He came to a dead halt, then very carefully took the golden dagger from Elijah. “Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of you making amends with anyone, brother. Kol deserves a chance to prove he has learnt moderation as much as any of the rest of us.”

Klaus discarded the rest of the day’s plans before he lost his nerve. At some point, either Rebekah or Elijah had taken objection to the basement and had moved the coffins into their corresponding bedrooms, so it was there Klaus ended up. Klaus delivered the silver dagger to Elijah immediately to prevent it becoming a temptation, but wasn’t surprised that Elijah did not join him in his vigil. This was Klaus’s gesture, and he waited with the offering of blood bags he had collected. He knew that Kol would not be impressed by them, but Elijah would be even less impressed by anything else.

Kol sat up, gasping.

“Kol,” said Klaus, opening a bag to demonstrate how before handing the lot over.

“Ah, I see it’s time to let the prisoner out for his centennial meal. As clever as these are, I didn’t realise I’d fallen so low in your esteem as to not even warrant actual humans.”

“Elijah…” Klaus trailed off as he realised there wasn’t any continuation of that sentence that would lead to a conversation he wished to have at that moment.

“Here,” said Klaus instead, throwing him the gold dagger. “Accept this as a peace offering.”

Kol snatched it out the air and stared at it in horrified amazement. “Is this—“

“Yes. Your theory worked perfectly. Congratulations.”

“Is this some kind of test? Is Elijah waiting behind the door, ready to take me down if I try to use it?”

“Ah, well, things have moved on a little since the last time you were awake. Let us just say that the time Elijah was willing to follow my lead is entirely in the past. I have no access to any of the silver daggers any longer.”

“Let’s test that then, shall we?”

Klaus did not attempt to move aside as Kol flashed towards him.

When Klaus woke up, he was still on the floor of Kol’s bedroom. Klaus knew he didn’t have the steadiness to get up -- it would be some years (decades) yet before being daggered stopped reminding him of things better forgotten -- so he laced his hands under his head and pretended to be comfortable lying down. “Feel better?”

Kol spoke up from somewhere outside his view. “Don’t play the victim. I’m sure you can understand why I needed to see whether the dagger worked for myself. And no, I do not feel better. Just what is your game, Nik? Rebekah tells me our father is dead, the little whelp Marcellus has abandoned you, and that you have just given up on breaking the hybrid curse. What is going on?”

Klaus cautiously tested his control, and pulled himself into a nearby chair. He’d need to be able to see Kol’s expressions for this conversation. “You’re my brother, Kol. Now that it is safe again, I wanted to have you home. I know you will find this difficult to believe, but I have missed you, little brother.”

“Seeing as how you could have changed that any time you pleased, I’m sure you can understand why that sentiment might seem a little less than convincing.”

“It should help that I can’t do it again, then. I’m sure Rebekah confirmed I didn’t have the daggers any more,” said Klaus.

“Yeah, she says Elijah has them these days, but that’s not exactly any better, is it? I mean, good for Rebekah, considering how Elijah dotes on her, but not much use for me.”

It would do no good to interfere in Kol’s relationship with Elijah, but there was something regarding that he could do. “Which reminds me. That time I daggered you instead of sending Marcellus away, I wronged you. You are my brother. Always and forever.”

Klaus was careful not to say he regretted his choice, but it had been a situation with only wrong answers. His cruelty had been in using Kol to wound Elijah when he had undaggered Kol in the first place, and that left Kol with a legitimate complaint against Klaus, if not the one he thought he had. Klaus left that acceptance of guilt in his expression.

Kol pulled a face and turned away. His voice was a little unsteady when he replied, “it’s not like Elijah had any intention of letting me walk free no matter what you did. He was so sure that I was going to bring Mikael down on us, if by some miracle you didn’t manage it first. How wonderfully ironic that it turned out to be the little brat who did it in the end.”

Klaus discarded the first four responses that came to mind. “Mikael’s dead, now. We don’t have to make decisions based on that fear any more.”

Kol bristled. “You say that like I was ever afraid of him. Father was never after me.”

“And who exactly do you think would have been his next target after he had disposed of me? The cautious Finn? The noble Elijah? His youngest daughter? Or perhaps you thought he would have politely committed suicide and left the rest of you in peace? We didn’t do it all to torment you, Kol. We did it to protect you.”

Kol scoffed, but he didn’t put much effort into it. “Well, you can’t pretend to be protecting me anymore, and I bet you or Elijah will find some excuse to dagger me within the decade anyway. And what is with that insane ‘take over a human’ plan you proposed to Rebekah? If you want to get rid of her, it would be kinder just to dagger her.”

“I assure you that it would work,” said Klaus, a little offended. He might not be the magic enthusiast Kol was, but he was not incompetent.

“Of course it would _work_. I just can’t imagine what possessed you to suggest it.”

“You can do it as well, you know.”

“Wear a human? I know you find me a little wild, Nik, but I’m not actively insane.”

“What if the human in question was a witch? You could regain what Mother stole from you -- your connection to magic.”

Kol paused a fraction too long. “And have every other witch in the world gunning for me.”

“Not if you asked them for a candidate beforehand. There are plenty of warlocks that must be kept alive as long as possible because they are anchors for important spells. Surely, at least one of them has committed a sufficiently heinous crime to deserve having their souls ripped from their bodies. You might be doing some magical community somewhere a priceless favour.”

“Uh huh,” said Kol. “Is this part of some deal with Elijah? We get to wake up, but we have to spend it as vulnerable prey somewhere far away?”

“I haven’t spoken to Elijah about this matter at all. You do realise that you need not part from us if you chose to indulge in magic for a time. There are things I’d only trust to a family member, so it would be helpful if you could provide one or two... thousand spells for--” Klaus caught the book Kol flung at him and smirked. It seemed Kol had been taking anger management lessons from Rebekah. Of course, he couldn’t admit that part of the attraction of having Kol mortal was that Kol’s tricks would necessarily become more limited in scope. Klaus checked he was no longer visibly trembling and stood up. This conversation was at about as good a note as it was ever likely to get. “Fun as this has been, I need to get blood. For some reason I’m feeling a little peckish.”

“Unpleasant being daggered, isn’t it?”

“Quite. Oh, and Kol? News you might want to follow up on. Rumour has it that there’s a well that lets people see dead loved ones in exchange for blood, and there’s a suspicion it might be Silas. I seem to recall you once had an obsession with the matter.”

There. That should keep Kol sufficiently distracted from causing mayhem while Klaus figured out what else to do.

 

* * *

 

Klaus had the feeling his distraction had worked a little too well when he responded to an invitation from Kol only to find himself in an unexpectedly overcrowded cellar. It seemed the full Mystic Falls gang had made it, with the addition of a deluded professor and an unconscious hunter. Klaus turned in a circle, very carefully not making excessive eye contact with Caroline. “What exactly is this?”

“It’s a trap, Nik. They promised to help me stop Silas, if I agreed to keep you daggered for the next fifty years. And you can’t deny that’s exactly what you deserve.”

Klaus threw back his head and laughed. He had given the dagger to Kol, knowing that the day would come when Kol used it against him. And Kol was more right than even he knew.  “I suspect most people would say I deserve a great deal more than that, brother.”

“You’re no fun anymore, Nik. Where’s the rage? Where are the threats of eternal torture?”

Klaus grinned, ignoring the confused looks from their audience to concentrate on his brother. He had no intention of letting Kol find out, now or ever, just how much a dagger affected him. “I don’t know, don’t you think that the dagger and torture threats have just gotten a little overdone over the centuries? I was thinking of trying something new. How about… ‘don’t even think about it, or I’ll have to write a strongly worded letter.’ No, no, you don’t have to say it. It does lack a little something.”

Klaus internally relaxed when Kol pouted.  Kol was by no means scared enough to really be intending to do anything to Klaus.

“You’re not taking me seriously,” said Kol. “Why do you never take me seriously?”

“You might have more success in this case if you weren’t trying to convince me that you prefer the assistance of this band of hypocritical nitwits to mine. I’ve accused you of many things, brother, but never of being stupid.”

Kol spread his hands in defeat. “Alright, you win. You’re right. This is a trap. It’s just not a trap for you.”

Stefan started forward. “What are you--”

“Nik may know that I’m not stupid, but you lot seem to think I am. It is perfectly obvious our good professor here intends to do precisely the opposite of stopping Silas.”

The Bennett witch lifted a hand, but nothing happened.

“Oh, did I forget to tell you I modified the spell, darling? No-one can cast magic within these walls without my permission.”

Less than two minutes later it was all over, with the vampires’ necks’ snapped, the professor drugged, and all of them neatly bound with prepared chains. Klaus ran through what information he was supposed to know as he considered Kol’s motley catch. Kol had told him enough over the weeks so he wouldn’t have to play completely ignorant. But Klaus hadn’t made any effort to meet this Caroline, so it would be a little difficult to explain why he wanted her spared. Well, her and her close friends, Klaus supposed, otherwise it would make any future approaches more difficult. Caroline’s friends probably made up the same group of people as the doppelganger’s friends, didn’t they? Close enough.

“Kol? Do you recall that accusation that I have become Elijah’s lapdog? Unfortunately for my image as the most powerful creature of all time, that taunt is not entirely without basis. Elijah has sworn the safety of some of these people, so I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to let you kill them all. I’m sure you know how to take care of a hunter, though. And your ring leader over there is all yours. Please, do take your time.”  

“You can’t kill him!” said the witch, as if she wasn’t now the weakest person in the room and had no ability to demand anything from them.

“Of course we can, darling,” said Kol. “It will be easy. Come now, he used magic to compel your dear departed pastor to murder twelve people with the end goal of bringing hell down on earth. Even I object to leaving someone that recklessly dangerous running around.”

“The massacre wasn’t his fault, and he doesn’t want to bring hell on earth. He just wants to help us get the cure and save his wife.”

Klaus said, “I’d be more careful who I put my trust in if I were you, Miss Bennett. Did he even tell you why expression magic is so shunned by the magical community when it is so powerful?”

“Because it contradicts spiritual magic. They’re afraid of it because it threatens their power.”

“Not quite,” said Klaus. “They are afraid of it, but entirely on its own merits. Even setting aside the fact that most people consider it more evil than even dark magic, powered as it is through human sacrifice. They’re afraid because most practitioners tend to lose control and destroy themselves along with everything around them. I suggest you check the advice you were given very carefully, lest you wake up one day with your house on fire.”

“It isn’t…” her voice broke, revealing there had already been some indicators that she had been asked for a higher price than she had anticipated.

“Enough with the chit chat, Nik,” said Kol. “They’re waking up. If I’m not allowed to kill them, what am I supposed to do with them? Wait until they try something else in their silly quest?”

Klaus ran his eye down the lot of them, considering and then dismissing them as threats. “Elijah believes they’re innocent children. Hardly the sort to commit the additional twenty four murders an expression triangle would need, even to get hold of a cure that almost certainly won’t work the way that they’re hoping. But if Elijah is incorrect, then you’ll have his assistance as well as mine in executing them.”

Klaus watched their expressions and judged they were definitely rethinking their priorities. What a world this had become, that they were more terrified by Elijah than they were by him.

“You’d better.” Kol walked along, freeing the ropes. “Alright, kiddies. Run along, and stay out of trouble now.”

The witch still looked like she wanted to do something, but the rest of her friends urged her out. Once the were well away, Klaus turned back to Kol, who was keeping a careful distance between them. For all his talk earlier, Kol didn’t seem entirely confident in protecting himself if Klaus took offence.

Klaus tilted his head. “Well. You have my services, brother. What is it that you wish me to do?”

“Arrange a flight to Nova Scotia? I’ll have the details in just a bit.” Kol waved a hand in the direction of the professor.

A trip with Kol was not unappealing, especially seeing as how the torture was likely to leave Kol in a good mood. “Whatever you need.”

“You really mean that?” asked Kol quietly.

“Of course I do.”

Klaus was taken aback when Kol smiled. A real smile, not the acknowledgement of a point scored they usually engaged in.

“Thank you.”

It seemed he’d been wrong when he’d told Elijah there was no hope of real reconciliation with Kol. Klaus walked away with the uncomfortable feeling that all he had needed to do -- all he had ever needed to do -- was be willing to stand next to Kol, rather than the other way around. Well, he had things to do. It wasn’t the time to indulge in sentimentality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The backstory established in TO doesn’t really match up very well with the implied backstory in TVD. In TO, Elijah was fully onboard with keeping Finn and Kol daggered (we’re shown three separate flashbacks of team-effort daggerings), but in TVD, he acts like it was something he tried to stop Klaus from doing. Here, I’m using the TO attitudes.
> 
> Random fact of the day: although blood transfusions were commonplace from the 1900s, polythene blood bags were only introduced in 1952.


End file.
